Ahh... I think you know you are re-opening the can of worms a lot of us have sifted through before. Reworded with certain liberties I beg apology for, "Do certain styles inherently deserve higher or lower ratings?" Personally, I've slowly grown fine with the answer of, "Yes" If I am looking at buying a malt liquor, am I looking at BA to guide me to the right one?? Well... actually, I might be. But is the average (i.e. not obviously completely normal like me ) person? They probably don't know what BA is. So in the end, we end up with a decent, crowd sourced representation of the beer world, curated by those who actually participate. Driven by our passion, but also limited by it. Somehow it kinda works.
Sorry. I was editing my previous post while you were probably still posting a response to my initial response (to your previous post).
I read every word, and I am also not real clear on what you meant. I normally agree with what you say, but this has me scratching my head. It sounds like you’re saying you can’t rate to style - even if the style is to be purposefully bland - because you think bland beer is abhorrent. But you can rate to style if it is flavorful, even if it smells like toe and tastes of horses, had body and is beautiful. The latter is like what you think every style should be like, and the former is like you disagreeing that a style can be purposefully bland. Remember: I fucking hate AAL beers. But your stance makes no sense to me.
LOL! Yeah, you're right. I didn't do a great job explaining myself. In the case of sours, they do have flavor and and aroma chatacteristics that I find attractive. Unfortunately, for many of them, the sour, funk component is so overwhelming that it's difficult for me to enjoy them. Still, many look attractive, they smell interesting, and many have considerable fruit and a long finish. Many have layers of flavor and look great. So even if I can't enjoy them, I can appreciate them. I can't say that about most of the bmc type aals I've tried. Also, the minimal flavor and almost unnoticeable aroma profile makes it very difficult to give them a good score. The wife and I are watching Stanley Tucci's National Geographic searching for Italy show, so I'm a bit distracted tonight.
Instead of beer, what if we were talking about a different food product, hamburgers. Here at BurgerAdvocate, we talk about the various style of burgers. Some like big, thick pub burgers, some like sliders, and so on. Now, It's time to review Mickey Ds Quarter Pounder. It's one of the best selling burgers, and a lot of people like, or even love, them Including me. But, there is no way I would ever say a QPC is a 'good' burger, let alone a great one. Cheap, low-grade meat, vastly over cooked, enough salt to clear your driveway in winter, shitty bun, fake 'cheese'. But damn, I just crave one a couple times a year. QPCs are to burgers what AALs are to Lagers.
Oh, and Mickey's in the green wide mouth things. But I got so trashed on the high-class but short-lived Budweiser Malt Liquor in the black cans. Definitely would have gotten a better than average rating in the Malt Liquor category from me.
Yes, but how would you rate a Quarter Pounder with Cheese for what it's supposed to be? Is it better than a Whopper with cheese? Why? What if I just don't like hamburgers? I like subs. Should my opinion on hamburgers be taken as seriously as someone that likes burgers? Or should I just refrain from reviewing burgers and just stay in my lane and review subs?
This is all reminding me that I feel like at one time I pitched an idea of adding something to the rating that was essentially how well the beer fits the style - a style score all itself. Maybe it wouldn’t have to actually figure into the numeric score, but it seems like it would be a nice metric for people that don’t like a beer style, but rate the beer (not to style, obviously) anyway. Not saying if it was a good or bad idea, but I think the feedback I got was that all the categories of a rating are supposed to be to style, so why add a style score. Except that people don’t rate to style.*shrug*
If you're not able to set your personal bias aside, and review the thing for what it is, then yes, do not review it.
That's a cool idea, though I think the implementation would be tricky. It would be awesome to be able to look a beer up and see how much it complies with style norms. I think of a situation like brown ale on here, where the #1 in the style is underground mountain from founders, a high abv, barrel aged version with coffee. Surely its a fine beer, but it would be a shame if someone tried it to see if they'd like brown ales (not unreasonable to reach for the top rated version first) and formed their perspective on the whole style without realizing how off from the norm that beer is
It's hard to understand what a malt liquor style is (or was). In Oregon, the Malt Liquor designation at least made some sense into the 70s, because beer was defined as less than 4%abw, 5%abv. (But Malt liquor didn't need to be above 4%abw.) Strong German imports were relabeled as malt liquor to comply with Oregon definitions. Before alcohol contents were put on labels, most of them (Colt 45 and Country Club) were probably about 5.5% abv (Colt still is). Just a little more alcohol than Bud. Colt 45 was originated by National, whose Boh and Premium were well regarded beers. Colt had a ragged flavor to my tastebuds and was worse than National/s other brands. I might define the style (for myself) as a lager with slightly higher alcohol and a harsh flavor meant to suggest high alcohol. Olde English was an outlier, with a MUCH higher alcohol content. Also note that alcohol content was never defining. In about 1973, I drank draft Colt 45 ML in a Colorado 3.2 tavern: less than 4% abv!
It was the same in California I believe. I was in the army from 73 thru 76, and got together with a buddy in Santa Criz during leave. I was stationed in Germany, and grabbed a couple bottles of German imports at a local deli. Both labels listed them as malt liquor. I'm assuming they weren't very fresh. Neither tasted anything like the stuff I was accustomed to drinking back in Northern Germany.
Mexican Bohemia was labeled as ale in California in the 70s because it was above the Beer limit. I probably saw those malt liquor labels on German lagers in CA when I lived there, and mis-remembered eying them in Oregon during visits to family?
I was thinking of shandys and radlers aside from malt liquors and AALs. I mean shadys and radlers are never going to get amazing reviews but there has to be excellent beers in those styles that deserve high marks but they arent going to get it because of the style.
Agreed, but this thread was always going to devolve into yet another argument about inappropriate AAL reviews. I wish I had a nickel for every time I've heard someone on BA complain about some macro aal getting an unfair BA review score. Invariably, there'll be an additional comment/observation that the previous lowball reviews didn't rate the beer to style, and so were unfair. I've even seen aal reviews where the author acknowledged that he was giving the beer an extra high score, simply because he felt some of the previous reviews were unfair.
